Excerpt
THE ink has barely dried on conservation plans developed by farm managers in cooperation with the Soil Conservation Service (SCS). Farm managers are implementing conservation systems approved in their plans. Concurrently, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administrators and others are expressing their views on current procedures/expectations for conservation compliance and speculating on what will happen when the 1990 farm bill debate heats up.
Peter Meyer, while USDA's deputy secretary, suggested that there be a balance between environmental and agricultural concerns. He said, “We intend to keep farmers in business but achieve soil conservation at the same time. The only remaining question is what will be the acceptable level of soil loss” (4).
Charles M. Benbrook of the National Research Council says a more free-wheeling debate will take place on the conservation provisions included in the 1990 farm bill than occurred in the debate over such provisions in the Food Security Act of 1985.
He believes that the conservation community thinks USDA went too far in relaxing the erosion control goal under conservation …
Footnotes
James B. Johnson is a professor and farm management specialist, Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State University, Bozeman, 59717. Richard T. Clark is an associate professor and extension farm management specialist, West Central Research and Extension Center, University of Nebraska, North Platte.
- Copyright 1989 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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